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Architect’s Pocket Book
Construction Design and Management Regulations In the mid-1990s, fatal accidents in the construction industry were five to six times more frequent than in other areas of manufacture. Also, all construction workers could expect to be temporarily off work at least once in their working life as a result of injury. The Construction Design and Management Regulations (CDM) 1994, effective from 31 March 1995, were drafted to try and improve these statistics. The regulations make designers responsible for making buildings ‘safely constructible and to provide safety information’. The purpose of the CDM Regulations can be summarized as follows: • To ensure Health and Safety (H & S) issues are considered from the beginning of a project and to consider the H & S implications during the life of the structure in order to achieve a safe working environment during construction and beyond. • To ensure the professionals appointed are competent to comply with the CDM Regs. These include designers, planning supervisors, contractors and sub-contractors. • To see that an H & S Plan is prepared for the construction period and that an H & S File is prepared for the completed structure. • To ensure that adequate resources are allocated to comply with the legislation imposed by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Planning Supervisor To implement the regulations, a Planning Supervisor (PS) must be appointed by the client. This can be anyone competent, and may be a member of the design team, contractors or even the client. Alternatively, architects should develop an H & S team by bringing in outside expertise or use a CDM advice service. The PS must notify the HSE of the project; see that designers do their CDM duty and co-operate on site safety